Rodeo Trails
by LittleLongHairedOutlaw
Summary: Three glimpses of a world where Erik and Nadir are rodeo cowboys in the 1980s


He tells everyone his face was the result of an accident when he was first starting out. They never ask for more details than that, but if they do he is ready to elaborate with mention of a fence post, the way timber can tear skin. It is a complete lie in every way, but it is enough that they believe him, and no one ever seems to realize that they have never met anyone else who remembers the event, or remembers his face as it is must have been, once.

It is to Nadir he tells the truth, one night beneath the stars. They are somewhere between Kaycee and Buffalo, sleeping on the ground because even though it is night it is too warm to sleep in the truck. They have only been together a few weeks, only been more than traveling companions for three days, but something compels him to whisper, there, with the stars as his only witness, that it was not a fence post that twisted his face.

It was birth.

He expects Nadir to be repulsed. Any decent person would be. He learned that long ago. Clearly there is something wrong with him, if this is the face he was born with and not one that circumstance created. Some terrible defect, deep inside, that means no matter what it is he does it is bound to be the wrong thing, bound to never be enough, bound to hurt those he cares about. He knows that deeper than he knows anything else in the world, and it would be perfectly understandable, if Nadir wanted no more closeness with him. Wanted nothing at all else to ever do with him.

The first thing he feels, still resolutely looking at the stars because if the revulsion is written in Nadir's face then he doesn't think he could ever bear it, is the soft press of lips to his bad cheek, bad only because it is worse than the other.

The second is the tears welling in his eyes.

Nadir's thumb is gentle, smoothing them away, and a sob catches in Erik's throat.

"It doesn't matter," and his voice is as soft as a breeze through the sage. "It doesn't matter when you're okay."

His lips come again, and kiss the tears from Erik's cheeks.

* * *

Competing in different events sometimes necessitates traveling separately, to different rodeos. And so it is not long after they first get together (after the night beneath the stars, after Nadir kisses Erik's face) that they develop their own code, to whisper over payphones and truck radios, and from hotel rooms and motels and rodeo offices. Something simple, that sounds as if they could be talking about business, that they could, plausibly, say in a normal conversation, just changed enough that they could never say it in a normal conversation.

"I hear Stormy Weather is in the eleventh," shorthand for _I love you_. Stormy Weather was a bronc, once, retired many years by the time they become involved. And there is no rodeo with eleven rounds. The National Finals only has ten.

"So I've heard" or "who told you that?" the code for _I love you too_.

"Don't you think Valdosta is a bit far?" is how they say _I miss you_.

"I favor Griffin" _I miss you too._

A whole language written in the words not-quite-spoken, the little pieces left between the lines. Simple things that at best sound normal to stranger ears, at worst sound like nonsense.

Nadir has no intention of going to Valdosta, and he knows Erik has nothing but unwanted memories of the place. To use it to express longing feels a little strange, but it was Erik's own suggestion, and Nadir is happy to go along with that.

(The first time he hears _Valdosta_ down the phone, it sends a thrill straight down to his toes. He never knew a hated place could fill him so much with joy.)

(The first time Erik hears _Stormy Weather_, there are two hundred miles between them, and tears sting his eyes. He never thought anyone could ever tell him they love him, but he should have known Nadir is not just anyone.)

* * *

He is in San Angelo, five years later, when the call comes through from San Antonio. He knows it is bad, it can't possibly be something good for him to be called to the rodeo office a half hour before the calf roping starts, when he is supposed to be getting himself ready. So when he hears young Philippe De Chagny's voice down the line, it is not so much of a shock as it might have been.

Still a hell of a shock though. It is all he can do to swallow the churning in his stomach.

It isn't that the line is garbled, more that his brain refuses to accept the words and with words like these why would anyone want to accept them?

Erik. Injured. Bad. Crushed. Bad. Two horses. Collision. Injured. Bad.

The pieces of it swirl in his ears, and Philippe's voice is hoarse. (Christ but the kid is only nineteen. He shouldn't have to be delivering such news.)

It takes Nadir a long minute to form words to say in response.

"I'm on my way," he manages to whisper, in spite of the breathlessness in his lungs, the nausea still in his stomach, how his legs cry out to run, now, and not stand here on the not give Philippe answers.

"He said something about stormy weather on the eleventh, that I had to tell you. But the foreca—"

Anything that Philippe might say is drowned by the ringing in Nadir's ears.

Not stormy weather on the eleventh. Stormy Weather _in _the eleventh.

_I love you_.

Erik wanted to tell—

For Erik to give that message to someone, even in the most oblique way—

A sob catches in his throat and he swallows hard against it, wills his voice to try and stay steady. "That's real good." His voice doesn't sound like his own, didn't sound like any voice he has ever heard before. "Tell him that's real good."

"But—"

He hangs up. Hangs up and withdraws from the calf roping and makes arrangements for Silverman to take care of Valiance for him. Easier to drive without worrying about his horse.

Then he jumps into his truck and guns it for San Antonio.


End file.
